Apollo 11, my Dad and me
Posted by John McLean, Jr. in Corporate, LaserDWG on July 20th, 2009
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. You are asking your self what do my Dad and I have to do with it. There are a couple of reasons:
- First we live in Houston. The motto for the City in the 60’s was Space City Houston. The professional baseball team changed its name from the Colt 45’s to the Astros.
- Second my Dad had a contract to work a component of the Apollo launch systems.
- Third give a little history of the company.
The project was a subcontract with one of the prime contractors. The whole program of getting a man to the moon by the end of 60’s required a whole lot of people from big and small companies to do their part to make the goal.
The subcontract was not very glamorous but it was important. You could say we where the stepping stone for each of the Apollo mission launches.
The project was to develop a three dimensional space frame analysis computer program for the launch tower at Launch Complex (LC) 34, 37 and 39. LC 39 was where Apollo 11 was launched from on its historic flight.
The project started several years before the historic flight. The program was written FORTRAN and hand punched on cards contained in 10 or 12 boxes. (Each of the boxes held 2000 cards. This was considered a large program back at that time.) The program also had to compute all of the trigonometric functions for polar coordinates. The trigonometric functions would not be available as built functions until FORTRAN IV. Since this was experimental software, the Control Data Corporation timeshare computer facility would only let my Dad run the program late at night on Friday or Saturday. This was because when a bug would occur, it would cause the computer to dump the entire operating system. The reload would take between 10 to 12 hours.
When Dad had a lot of cards to correct or change I would occasional get to go and help. Can you image how I felt being all of 13 years of age and working a NASA project? I did learn how to read Hollerith code. (Punch Cards and Hollerith code)
My Dad had to make a lot of trips to Cape Canaveral or the “Cape” as it was called. These trips where to develop an as-built of each of the three towers. That required all of the components and structural members had to be measured and in some case weighed. So you can see as-built drawings have always been a part of the companies business.
LC 39 was configured differently for each mission. The program had to be run for each launch to determine if the any of the structural members had to be changed to a bigger or smaller member.
Dad tells a story about his first time going up the elevator which is on the outside of the tower. He had gone through several days of the intense safety classes. They showed him how to escape the tower from 300 feet up and to determine wind direction so he could run up wind once he was on the ground. He told me that a lot of topics where covered, but a few items where missing.
On his first trip up the tower, got on with a bunch of big and brawny iron works. The whole group stepped to the side of the elevator and grabbed hold of the hand holds and squeezed so hard their knuckles turned white. My Dad said to himself they where kidding the new kid on the block, so he stood in the middle of the elevator. I forget to tell you something, the elevators have a front and back door. The elevator suddenly came to a stop and both doors opened. The wind caught my Dad and he started out the opposite door. There was no catwalk or landing at that level. One of the iron worker’s grabbed him as he was about to fly out the door. He said the grip was like a vise.
After the doors closed the iron worker turned to my Dad and said “Why do you think there are two big guys on each side of the astronauts going into the elevator.” From then on he stepped to the side and white knuckled the hand rail.
I hoped you enjoyed this blog, I did. It is always fun remembering some very fond memories.
P.S. For you information my Dad and I are still working together after all these years.
An Old Friend is Back where it belongs in Disto D8
Posted by John McLean, Jr. in LaserDWG, Lieca Disto on June 9th, 2009
We have just completed interfacing LaserDWG with the new Leica Disto D8TM. The D8 has a lot of new features and maintains many of the best features from previous Disto’s.
Two new features of the D8 that will have a big impact on productivity are the display/targeting screen and the 360° tilt sensor. Each of these new features can take up a blog or two by themselves and will be discussed in another installment in the future.
Today, I am going to discuss a keypad layout that was originally in the Disto Plus. The reference key was a single function button for changing the reference point of the measurement. This was available even when the 2nd function level keys where active.
When Leica made the Disto A6 smaller and lighter, something had to change. Leica decided to reduce the number of keys. The Plus had 17 keys and the A6 had 14. That required some keys to be removed and other keys had to double up. The reference point key was doubled up with lower left arrow key (2nd level function) in A6.
One of the strengths of the Plus, A6 and D8 is the Bluetooth® interface which transmits data from the unit to an application. Some Laser to CAD applications setup the 2nd level keys to transmit both a distance and keypad identifier when an arrow key (2nd level function) is pressed. The key identifier is then used as a direction for the distance.
When the A6 is configured as described above, the reference key is not readily available. This required the operator to perform the following steps:
- Press the 2ndlevel button to return to the first level functions.
- Change the reference point on the A6.
- Press the 2nd level button to return to the second level functions.
As you can imagine, this was painful! This is especial true when working a complex corner or complex column geometry.
The D8 is a little bigger now. The reference point button is now a single function key located in the lower left corner of the Disto D8. This should help reduce a few key strokes.
I am glad to have my old friend back where it belongs; as a single function key. Maybe it is time to retire my old Disto Plus.
Project Specific default Wizard Template
Posted by John McLean, Jr. in How To, IntelliCAD on May 18th, 2009
The other day on a customer support call I was asked how to get a standard drawing to be selected when using the New Project wizard. After getting the customer square away, I thought how many other IntelliCAD users had forgotten or do not know how to set up the default template directory.
By default the drawingtemplates are searched for in the installation directory of IntelliCAD. The directory is something like:
C:\Program Files\JMA Tech\IntelliCAD 6.6 Standard
The New Project Wizard allows you setup a new drawing in two ways:
- Set the drawing parameters using prompts
- Load a drawing template file.
I prefer the second method so I can load only project specific drawing templates. This will allow you to preload the blocks and layer system required by the client. This also reduces mistakes in the field since you or the operator do not have to remember what the required drawing setting or load specific blocks.
Now how do you go about do this?
- Start IntelliCAD if it is not already running.
- Click the Tools menu (upper line)
- The Options dialog should now be displayed. A tabbed dialog.
- Click the tab labeled Path/Files.
- A list of user paths and locations should be displayed in the main part of the dialog.
- Scroll down the User Path until the User Path Templates is highlighted.
- Click on the Location (column to the left). This should then become highlighted.
- You should now delete the current directory list. This way only the project specific templates will be selectable by the wizard.
- Press the “Browse” at the lower right corner of the dialog.
- A directory dialog will be displayed. Dialog title is “Browse for Folder”
- When the directory (folder) is displayed for the templates then highlight the folder and click OK button.
- How go to the second panel in the dialog. (this is below the User Path panel)
- Scroll through the System files until Template is displayed
- Highlight the file name for the template.
- Click the Browse button below the panel.
- The standard Open File dialog will be displayed.
- The standard Open File dialog will be displayed. The list of files will be from the directory path that was previously selected.
- Highlight the drawing template file that is to be used as the default file. Click the OK button to accept the selected file.
- Click the OK buttonat the bottom of the Options dialog box.
That is all there is to it.
Now each time you need to start a new drawing for project use the New Drawing Wizard with a the project specific template list.
Start of JMA Tech’s Blog
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on May 9th, 2009
Welcome to the first installment of JMA Technology’s weblog.
In the future we will be covering topics on interfacing laser devices to CAD applications.